This episode of Over the Edge features an interview between Matt Trifiro and Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst and Founder of neXt Curve, a global research advisory firm focused on emerging technology research. Leonard discusses how converging technologies are creating new opportunities at the edge and the interesting trends he is observing.
This episode of Over the Edge features an interview between Matt Trifiro and Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst and Founder of neXt Curve, a global research advisory firm focused on emerging technology research. Leonard discusses how converging technologies are creating new opportunities at the edge and the interesting trends he is observing. This conversation spans across edge versus on-premises, failed digital transformations, edge tech in retail, digital twins and more.
“As these cloud native technologies come closer or start to infiltrate the vast expense that is the edge, it's challenging everyone's assumption because you take the hyperscaler mindset, you try to apply it to the edge, it does not work. The edge is totally a different beast. And we're seeing that realization in the industry start to play out.”
“The interesting stuff happening at the edge for retail is localizing the personalization, being able to close the loop on customer interactions. Now it sounds easy, but it’s not.”
“So if you look at something like edge computing, the reason why it's exciting is because we're looking at a lot of the things that are happening on endpoint devices and how they're becoming more capable intersecting with cloud technologies, and it's creating a whole new realm of possibilities across what we call quote unquote, the edge.”
“When we talk about edge computing and edge, what we're not talking about is the paradigm that has dominated our thinking for the last 15 years, which is you have a client at the edge and it's talking to a, and communicating and relying on, a central hyperscale data center.”
“Modernization is a huge opportunity because if you can't modernize and you don't modernize, you can't really pull through a lot of these aspirational applications and visions that we have for these technologies.”
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(02:19) How did Leonard get his start in technology?
(4:13) Leonard’s work as an analyst
(5:22) What is Leonard looking at within edge technology?
(8:54) The difference between edge and on-premises
(15:13) What Leonard tells his clients to pay attention to
(18:42) Cloud native technologies at the edge
(20:47) Digital transformation and modernization at the edge
(23:20) Can companies wait to modernize?
(25:59) Example of a failed digital transformation effort
(29:54) Opportunities with edge in retail
(36:38) How will the digital twin evolve?
(39:35) Looking to the future, what is Leonard excited about?
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Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting DellTechnologies.com/SimplifyYourEdge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.
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Connect with Leonard on LinkedIn
Narrator: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Over the Edge. This episode features an interview between Matt Truro and Leonard Lee, executive analyst and founder of Next Group. Leonard has 30 years of experience advising and delivering digital business solutions to Fortune 500 companies. He discusses how converging technologies are creating new opportunities at the edge, and the interesting trends he is observing in tech.
This conversation spans across edge versus on-prem. Failed digital transformations, edge tech and retail, digital twins and more. But before we get into it, here's a brief word from our sponsors.
Narrator 2: Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions, from hardware and software to data and operations across your entire multi-cloud environment.
We're here to help you simplify your edge so that you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting Dell [00:01:00] technologies.com/simplify your edge for more information, or click on the link in the show notes.
Matt Trifiro: Two years ago when I started the Over the Edge podcast, it was all about edge computing. That's all anybody could talk about.
But since then I've realized. The edge is part of a much larger revolution. That's why I'm pretty proud to be one of the founding leaders of a nonprofit organization called the Open Grid Alliance for oga. The OGA is all about incorporating the best of edge technologies across the entire spectrum of connectivity.
From the centralized data center to the end user devices, the open grid will span the globe and will improve performance and economics of new services like private 5G and smart retail. If you want to be part of the open grid movement, I suggest you start@opengridalliance.org where you can download the original Open grid manifesto and learn about the organization's recent projects and activities, including the launch of its first innovation zone in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Narrator: And now please enjoy this interview between Matt Truro and leonard Lee.
Matt Trifiro: Hey Leonard, thanks for joining us on the Over the Edge podcast.
Leonard Lee: Great to be here. It's [00:02:00] about
Matt Trifiro: time, right? Yeah. We've certainly been trying to get this together for quite a while. We see each other on LinkedIn all the time. Yeah.
Occasionally troll each other, but
Leonard Lee: yeah, all the time.
Matt Trifiro: Nice to be live. So one of the things I'd love to ask my guests, cause I think it's it's super interesting answers, is like, how'd you get your start in technology?
Leonard Lee: Oh, geez. Wow. I've been a nerd from like childhood, right? I mean, I was always enamored by computers.
My first one was an Apple two E, and I guess fascinated with. Software programming computers started off with basic, I don't know if you remember basic. Oh, totally,
Matt Trifiro: totally right. That's the first language I learned too.
Leonard Lee: Yeah. Yeah. And then started when the mat came around, bought one, or at least my parents bought me one and then started to learn Pascal.
My ambition was to, uh, design and build games for the Mac, and that didn't quite pan out because they didn't really have. Books back then that teach you how to develop [00:03:00] games and everyone was kind of figuring everything out, right? It's like, what can we do with these things that are called personal computers?
So, I mean, that's really one where I got my start. But technology in, in the broad sense of the term, has always been part of my professional life as well, or career. I started off as a consultant, building database applications and such, and have a long. Career in technology consulting, doing all that digital transformation stuff that everyone loves to talk about.
Custom application development, package software, deployments, whole range of stuff. That's how I got started and how technology is just became a part of the fabric of who I am. Professionally and career wise. Now,
Matt Trifiro: is that your original Mac sitting on your desk behind
Leonard Lee: you? Yeah, I still have the little 3.5 discs with some of my IT boots.
Yeah. Yeah, it does. It still works. I mean testament to how they used to [00:04:00] build computers back in the Yeah,
Matt Trifiro: exactly. Exactly that. That was back when the MAC used to boot with a happy face. Yeah.
Leonard Lee: Don't do that anymore. Yeah.
Matt Trifiro: That's really neat. So now, now you're an analyst. So what does an analyst do?
Leonard Lee: Yeah, that's a good question.
I think it's changing quite a bit, but I think at the end of the day, what an analyst is doing is observing and analyzing what's happening. You know, it depends on what kind of analyst, right? And so I guess what's more important is what kind of analyst am I? Yeah, what kind of analysts are you? How about that?
I guess the easiest way of describing is I look in between the cushions. For Penny leftover leftover money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As we look at these transformative or impactful technologies converge, there are things happening in between where these technologies meet, and I think these intersects are the frontier of where we're going.
Right? So if you look at. Something like Edge Computing. The reason why it's [00:05:00] exciting is because we're looking at a lot of the things that are happening on endpoint devices and how they're becoming more capable intersecting with cloud technologies, and it's creating a whole new realm of possibilities across what we call quote unquote the edge, edge and
Matt Trifiro: cloud.
And in there all these new possibilities. Okay, so between the internet and the edge, where are the cushions and where are you looking?
Leonard Lee: One of the big areas that I'm looking at is the intersect between emerging wireless technologies and you can throw 5G into the mix edge cloud computing, right? A lot of the new intelligence.
That can be brought from the cloud and are emerging in endpoints. We're seeing smartphones get more powerful. We're seeing a whole new category or categories of devices that are much more capable in terms of compute and, and, and intelligence, right? So if you wanna call it [00:06:00] ai, being able to handle those types of functions and capabilities and as these things kind of.
Get squished together there. There are these new architectures and solutions that can be realized. And so that's broadly what I'm looking at. And so a lot of the work that I do, quite frankly, is work with some of the leading tech companies, figuring out, okay. What's really forming at this intersect?
What's real? What's the roadmap in terms of the progression of how these are evolving and advancing based on the state of the technology and the advancement of the underlying technologies? So, got it. Your
Matt Trifiro: analyst firm's name is Ncur? Yep. And is that like a hundred people?
Leonard Lee: No, it really isn't. Even though there are some folks who want me to make it a hundred person firm, but it's actually, I'm kind of like a one man band.
People ask me, well, don't you wanna scale? And [00:07:00] yeah, I do want to scale. I wanna be able to scale what I can individually do and do the kind of work that I really enjoy doing, but also do the kind of work that my clients. Find valuable. And so it, it's really what I've done with Ncur is take the 30 years of experience that I have and yes, I've had 30, I'm old.
Take that experience and challenge to some valuable stuff that my clients enjoy and that I have fun doing.
Matt Trifiro: You mentioned technology companies as your clients. I mean, without naming names unless you can, what are the kind of categories of clients that you te tend
Leonard Lee: to have? Well, telco operator, I mean, it is a pretty wide range, so semiconductor companies.
Mm-hmm. OEMs, electronics companies, systems integrators, device manufacturers, industrial tech companies. So I, it is a pretty broad range of companies that I work with. I mean, you can kind of get a feel for the different sectors that I work. In or with, just by [00:08:00] following me on LinkedIn, because I opine quite a bit.
As you very well know, I share quite a bit. That should give you a good indication of the types of companies and brands that I work with.
Matt Trifiro: So, you know, the first season of Over the Edge, my trope was, So what's your definition of edge? And after I got about a hundred different answers, I got tired of asking that question because everybody had a different answer.
Realized it's just a marketing term, right? Like the customer doesn't actually cares. It's a marketing term. So I came up with a new question, which is, okay, no, you've actually answered this. You've given me what I think is one of the best answers to this. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So my next, my next question wa it became, okay, well what's the difference between edge and on-premises?
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And and usually people are like, they scratch their head and they're like, whoa, nothing really. But your answer was actually pretty good. Maybe we can go into it a little bit. So you said to me the difference between Edge and on-premises. With Edge, the control plane extends all the way back to the cloud uhhuh.
Now that's not always the answer to what is it, but that's pretty good. Yeah. [00:09:00] Tell me what you mean by control plane and how that changes. I. What normally would be considered an on-premises compute computer on the factory floor is on-premises, but we're starting to call it edge computing. Can you help us walk through like the nuances of that?
Leonard Lee: Well, yeah, I'm, I'm glad that you reminded me that I told you that I say a lot of stuff. I was really
Matt Trifiro: smart. Thanks for reminding me. Okay. Yeah,
Leonard Lee: I know exactly. Happens. Yeah, I, I think what we have to do is recognize that when we do talk about edge computing and what's happening, the interesting things that are happening with.
Edge is what's happening with infrastructure and the way that we look at infrastructure and as we think in terms of control plane, we're really thinking about a network of things, right? And the edge itself, it is just a relative thing. It really starts with just a place, an endpoint device it or a client device, if you will.
And when we think about edge computing, [00:10:00] It really is a distributed computing paradigm. And what I mean by that is not in terms from a cloud perspective, I mean from a endpoint perspective and its relation, ship to some sort of compute resources that provides services. Some intermediary services or aggregation services oftentimes call it the server, and that ends up becoming the.
Infrastructure that we see developing and being built everywhere, most notably. I mean, I think a good example is what, what is happening with the ran? So when we hear about V ran and cloud ran and all this stuff, what we're seeing is, is that a lot of the cloud technologies. Are now coming down to the edge and it's the whole rand.
What's happening with the rand is a perfect example of that, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be open or anything like that, but looking at cloud native technologies now, finding their [00:11:00] meaning at the edge, and now as far as control when we're talking about there is. The orchestration of all these resources, the management of these resources as a network.
And so that's what I meant by that, or I think I meant by that. And that expands that control plane can extend all the way up to the cloud. Right? And when we talk about edge computing and edge, we're, what we're not talking about is. The paradigm that has dominated our thinking for the last 15 years, which is you have a client at the edge and it's talking to a, and communicating and relying on a central hyperscale data center.
It's highly centralized compute. What we're talking about, edge computing is something, I mean, it starts with CDNs. I mean, everyone knows about CDNs or I think they do. That has been sort of the genesis of this neo edge computing thinking. And bringing a lot of that kind of network thinking out across this [00:12:00] expanse or a continuum that you might call the edge.
Yeah. Let's unpack
Matt Trifiro: some of that cuz you throw out some, some nice telco vernacular. So you mentioned the ran the radio access network. Yeah. And for those of you that aren't in the telco industry that you can think of as historically being a box, an appliance that sits. Often at the base of a macro cell tower.
Right. That's historically what they were. Yeah. It's called around Now if you open that appliance up, it's an Intel server running a bunch of software and there's some electromagnetic, it's some radio antennas and stuff like that. So there's some analog stuff that gets involved in this. But basically it's a, an intel server sitting at the base of a cell tower driving an antenna.
And what people realize is like, well, hey, Why does it have to be on an appliance? Why can't it run on a pool of servers that I buy from Dell or hp or lease from Amazon or whatever? Right. And so the telco industry has gone into this V ran virtualized round or cloud ran. Cloud ran or open ran. And it's like, okay, there's like three or four parts.
There's a centralized unit, and that's a piece of software. And then there's a distributed unit, and that's a piece of software. And there's a [00:13:00] radio unit, and that's mostly software, but it does have an antenna. Yeah. And what you're saying, Is that okay, now we can spread those things out. Yep. One could be running in a regional data center, another one could be running on a curbside micro module data center, and the last one could be up on the pole.
Yeah. And somebody's gotta connect all those and orchestrate them, because if you've got 10,000 small cells, all of which are being driven in this kind of area, you're gonna need like an orchestration system. And that absolutely starts to look a lot like cloud. Right. Yeah.
Leonard Lee: Yeah, right. Or software defined network.
I mean, all these principles of virtualization, the more progressive cloud native technologies and compute paradigms, architectures, these are all things that are, are defining the new. Edge infrastructure, right? There's a lot of folks that'll say, Hey, you know, we've been doing this forever. Yes, the rand's been there forever.
It used to be proprietary boxes, but these new technologies are allowing for what? Like what you just described, the disaggregation of the system into more granular parts, and it [00:14:00] allows the system to be distributed in a way that can garner new efficiencies. New types of performance Potential. New business models.
Yeah, new business models. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, I mean, it's really exciting stuff and that's where, when I hear some folks say, well, we've been doing this forever. It's like, yeah, kind of, but not what we're gonna see in the next decade and beyond. It's amazing how quickly the cloud native technologies have moved toward the.
The edge of the edge, right? Yeah. And how, I mean, it's even in the iot space, you see people now deploying containers and su such on devices like aws. I mean, their whole cloud car concept is let's containerize everything on a vehicle. So yeah, it's pretty. Amazing. So
Matt Trifiro: when you're out there looking for putting your finger on the pulse, what are you seeing actually getting traction today in edge computing?
Like who's making money and how are they making [00:15:00] money? Maybe if you see anybody making money.
Leonard Lee: Oh geez. Isn't that like the gajillion dollar question to answer,
Matt Trifiro: or where are you telling your clients like, look between these cushions?
Leonard Lee: Ah, yeah, geez. That's a really tough one because I think I. We're still in early days in the Edge Cloud story.
I think the challenge is, is that a lot of the infrastructure that we would like to see shape the future, uh, narrative of Edge Cloud. I mean, a lot of it's there. I think there's a brownfield. Challenge with everything that we've encountered, right? I mean, we, the, the telco folks, they see it. Industrial folks, they see it.
I think the cushion to look under and or the crack to explore is modernization. Because the thing is, is that we can get really aspirational about all these technologies. I mean, Chat, G P T, ai, [00:16:00] 5g, blah, blah. Everything inevitably run into the problem of reality. And that we are dealing with a lot of systems that the future will depend on, these visions will depend on, and so modernization I think is a huge.
Opportunity because if you can't modernize and you don't modernize, you can't really pull through a lot of these aspirational applications and visions that we have for these technologies. I think I totally
Matt Trifiro: agree with you. I think I totally agree with you that a big chunk of the early demand is, does look like modernization.
Yeah. That's really interesting. So, so when I started in Edge seven years ago, right? We all thought it was gonna be autonomous cars, right? We all kind of, I bought into that. I thought, wow, this is how we're gonna get, no, maybe eventually Edge is gonna play an important role in autonomous cars, but I don't know, last time you were out on the street, I didn't see an autonomous cars.
I haven't seen too many. Yeah, there aren't too many. But here's the thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I was gonna go with this. So what we, what I've discovered in all [00:17:00] this is that like the biggest low-hanging fruit opportunity are all of those existing on-premises workloads. Right. They're sitting on premises. Most enterprises don't want to be in the data center business anymore.
It's a capital intensive. Yeah. Especially as you upgrade their apps to ai. They've gotta buy all these like GPUs and they gotta change the air conditioning and get more power. And they're like, I don't want, I don't wanna do this anymore. Can I just like buy this from Amazon or somebody else? Yeah. And it's literally just moving those workloads.
Off premises, but then to your point, well onto what, right? There has to be something there, right? The nearest Amazon region might be 3000 miles away. I can't drive my factory on that, or yeah, do my real time computer vision on my cameras. So it has to be like really close. Well, that starts to look like edge.
Leonard Lee: Yeah. Yeah, it does. So again, going back to what we're talking about, the phenomenon that's really driving the new possibilities are like these cloud native technologies, right? That doesn't mean cloud. We're talking about the tech technologies, right? Mm-hmm. Microservices [00:18:00] architectures and
Matt Trifiro: Right. Well, it doesn't mean the public cloud, it means doesn't cloud wherever it's running.
Right.
Leonard Lee: I mean, you can virtualize this, you can deploy. It's already, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. The biggest challenge is how do we create the tools? How do we create, uh, the accelerators to drive modernization? I really like your point. It's the workloads, the systems that, or the infrastructure that workloads that exist today run on.
And how do we. Then capitalize on the value that these cloud native technologies or edge cloud native technologies can foster. Now, one of the interesting things is this is as these cloud native technologies come closer or start to infiltrate the vast expanse that is the edge, it's challenging everyone's assumption because you take the hyperscaler mindset, you try to apply it to the.
Edge, it does not work. The edge is totally a different beast, and we're seeing that [00:19:00] realization in the industry start to play
Matt Trifiro: out. Let's talk about that. I'm a hyperscale cloud provider. How is the edge different for me? How should I be looking at it? How's it changing my perceptions?
Leonard Lee: We have to look at latency networking.
I mean, well networking in a very, very different way. When we look at the compute deployment, it's gonna be more constrained. You're not, I mean, it's not a massive data center that you're looking at in most instances. The hardware designs, I mean, let's just talk about hardware for a minute. I, I did a podcast with a buddy of mine, Earl Lum, and we were talking about how the servers that go into a distributed unit, Look very different and have different requirements than what you have in a data center.
Yeah, it, it is just a different environment. So that means that you have to design hardware differently. It also means that you need to design software differently and then design to network differently. It's a [00:20:00] different universe, and I think one of the big opportunities is figuring out, okay, how do we continue to develop the tooling, the capabilities that allow us to apply the benefits of cloud native technologies across our existing infrastructures as well as new infrastructures.
Matt Trifiro: Yeah. Yeah, that's really true. Now, you mentioned earlier on, when you're talking about your work background, your history, you mentioned digital transformation, which is one of those like almost CR worthy words. Yeah. There isn't a better word, but it's like, oh gosh, did you really say digital transformation?
I then you said modernization, which is like another very, so let's actually get specifically, so business today. What does it mean for it to modernize? What does it mean for it to digitally transform? How should I, as an executive, as a potential client of yours be thinking about? How my business is today and what I might maybe should be doing with
Leonard Lee: it.
I did a talk on digital transformation with one of my clients, and so here's the thing. This is where the role [00:21:00] of modernization is actually applying technologies. Okay? To modernize and hopefully it's in a continuous way, inevitably has to be, because rarely can we do big bang stuff anymore is to enhance your business capabilities.
Applying technologies that are always evolving that. You can count on to change constantly, right? That's the one probably truth that you can deal with in life. And then the digital transformation part is really being able to capitalize on these new capabilities that you have in evolving your business.
Now, that can either take the shape of new operational efficiencies that you can garner through these new capabilities, or it could be. Extending your business and your business model and your markets through the application of these new capabilities. And so that's at [00:22:00] more of the top line digital transformation, but that's how modernization and digital transformation kind of play with each other.
At least that's the way I think, or might be some people who disagree. That's fine. You can make comments in in the section below. Yeah,
Matt Trifiro: that's right. It's interesting cuz we live in this very. Bespoke world of technologists that hang out on LinkedIn together, go to these shows together. Right? Yeah. And it's kinda like the Star Trek convention, right?
And, and it's
Leonard Lee: Right. Never heard it described that way, but yet,
Matt Trifiro: and then you go outside this world and you think of everything being digital. I can't remember the last time I stored a piece of paper by sticking in a folder except an original birth certificate. Right. Everything else I just photograph and I stick up on the cloud and I don't deal with it, but I interviewed a guy on the podcast the other day who was saying, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
First of all, you live in this tiny, tiny little world inside the Star Trek convention, but I've got a guy down in Chile where I. The data readings from the plant is he walks around with a clipboard. Yeah. And a pencil. Right. And so [00:23:00] modernization is okay, let's give him Excel and then we'll give him a sensor that automatically reports.
Do you recommend your clients in general, and I realize every client's gonna be a little bit different, do you tend on the side of you need to take more risks because you need to modernize faster than your competitors? Or are you on the side of It's okay to wait? Great.
Leonard Lee: I mean, you can do either. It really depends on what your priorities are, but there is nothing wrong with waiting because you can observe all the mistakes that the pioneers make.
I mean, everyone always brings up Apple, right? In this regard. They claim that Apple's always late, and it's like, no, they're just, either they know more than the people who are front running, but for sure they're observing. As their thesis of what it takes to actually quote unquote win. Yeah. I mean, they
Matt Trifiro: took so long to introduce a smartphone after everybody had already done that.
Leonard Lee: Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. I mean, think about this whole AR thing, you know, XR thing. It's like, oh, they're so behind and blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, no, [00:24:00] maybe they know something you don't know. Right, right. What I think is more important is you focus on value, but having a crystal clear idea of what that is, I mean, yeah, sure you can experiment, but there's a cost to that, right?
And most companies don't have the budget to go out and do all kinds of like Google X type of experiments for their business. That's just the reality. Speaking of Star Trek convention and being in a tech bubble, most people out there, most companies out there. Uh, they don't subscribe to this thinking, right?
I think one of the funny things is that you have all these academic papers out there talking about you need to digital transformer. You're gonna lose out people. You ask 'em, what's digital transformation? They have no idea and they don't care. And that's why we still talk about digital transformation.
You see the same Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Slideware from like years ago and the same talking points. And I [00:25:00] think a lot of the challenge here is that the message doesn't resonate. But if you're purposeful about how you look at technology, look at applying it, building new capabilities, and coming up with solutions to solve problems or to advance and evolve your business.
That's a different thing, but it's also a much more difficult conversation to have. Right? There has to be substance. You can't just walk in with some hypothetical stuff and then talk to a board or a business leader and say, Hey, let me scare the crap out of you with some survey results. You know what I'm saying?
It doesn't, it doesn't. Work that way. And we also have to be mindful that digital transformation can be done wrong. Hmm. We all assume, oh, you have to digitally transform because the outcomes are assured. I mean, we speak like that is some kind of truth, but it's not. Can you give me
Matt Trifiro: an example of a digital transformation that was a failure of it that didn't yield results?
I wouldn't be able to, [00:26:00]
Leonard Lee: I wouldn't be able to speak to it because nobody writes about this stuff. Right. It just happens. What gets written about are all the successes. The challenges are all out there. I mean, look at every single cybersecurity incident, data breach, blah, blah, blah. All these things are an outcome.
I mean, these are very visible outcomes of less than stellar, let's call it digital transformation efforts. I can actually. Name a few, but I don't know if I can disclose them public. It's probably not a good
Matt Trifiro: idea. Can you anonymize it and give us an example of we started out to do something like this and this is what happened?
Leonard Lee: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's like one of these big Bang implementations, transformations. E R P, right. And one of the big challenges that the organization had was this thing called change management. This is gonna resonate with a lot of people back in the day, and it probably still happens today. Change management is a line item in a [00:27:00] project that you always saw taken out.
Okay. Along with testing. Isn't that funny? Yeah. Yeah. And so when you happen, when you throw two things out, what happens? Number one, the application or whatever it is that
Matt Trifiro: you are, it's broken, and then nobody adopts it because it's broken and because you didn't put any training in there.
Leonard Lee: Okay, end of story.
Now your listeners, almost every single one of them is gonna go, oh yeah. I've seen that happen before, but then you will never see that in a study study.
Matt Trifiro: I was like,
Leonard Lee: Hey, look. Look at how this got jacked up. No one's gonna talk about, right. My point being is this, is that for the people who celebrate and kind of worship data or digital transformation, we need to be mindful that to get to the benefits of it, we need to practice.
Well, and that's a discipline that is tough to, number one. It's tough to [00:28:00] get that experience. It's getting tougher because the technology continues to change and become more complex. And so the discipline of being, let's call it a digital transformist, I don't know if I'm coining a new term, is becoming tougher.
I think the onus is on folks who. Call themselves solution providers to up their game constantly. I don't think things get easier. I think they're getting tougher. Hmm. Right. Edge computing all, all the confusion are on edge. I mean, there's still people who don't get cloud, all that. Right. Right. Iot is a mess.
AI in and of itself is spoken in such general terms. It's like I always bump into a situation where I'm going, what AI are you talking about? Right? And then when you find out, it's like, oh, okay, well that, that's like a lot of progress
Matt Trifiro: is made if you can disambiguate the terms people use. I've discovered that also.
It's like, do you mean this type of edge
Leonard Lee: computing? Right. It's important stuff to. [00:29:00] A take in having a meaningful conversation, and it's something that I always did when I was a, a solution architect and managing and leading large teams. Oftentimes you have folks on your team coming from different backgrounds, they have different types of technical competencies.
They might be a, a Java guy versus a net guy, and they use different terminologies for the same thing. Mm-hmm. It's important to. Get everybody on the same semantic. So people who listen to me oftentimes go, dude, you make such a big deal out of words, but words matter a lot, especially when you're on the hook of delivering
Matt Trifiro: your leading team.
Right, right. Words are the
Leonard Lee: most important thing. Yeah. Right.
Matt Trifiro: Yeah, I definitely get that. So you recently spoke about edge computing and retail. Can you talk a little bit about that? What's the most interesting opportunities for edge computing and retail?
Leonard Lee: Yeah, that's a good question. The interesting stuff happening at the edge for retail I think is [00:30:00] localizing the personalization, being able to close, close the loop on customer interactions.
Now it sounds easy, but it's not, right. There's a lot of opportunities to localize because privacy is a big thing. I think it's gonna become a bigger. Thing going forward and retailers need to be able to, in the future and today better manage their customer data, make sure that there's localized management of it.
And that whatever types of new retail capabilities they want to deploy in their store locations, the physical locations, that it's there for whatever purpose, and it's not put at, let's call it risk in the central cloud. I'm starting to hear a lot of this talk about how the cloud is more secure. I don't really know what that means, but definitely for retail, when you look at the big box stores, They're very interested in localizing the data to the [00:31:00] store and being able to drive analytics much more in a, let's call it a purposeful way for that particular store location.
And so the edge computing that opportunities that you're seeing in retail are of that kind of nature. Now, there's different possibilities for, I would say smaller. Retailers, right? So let's think in terms of the popups, right? The little street side vendors and stuff like that. I think there's some really cool possibilities there to bring, let's say, large scale retail capabilities to the individual or the smaller retailer.
Like what
Matt Trifiro: are some examples of those capabilities? Think about
Leonard Lee: pop-up stores, right? Being able to bring a lot of the personalization and. The intelligent retail capabilities that you see a lot of the big box stores are pursuing, bring it down to a [00:32:00] small pop-up operation. Those capabilities that have largely been attributed to, or only accessible to retailers that have these big wallets, right?
Think about that in terms of new business opportunities for either telcos or other forms of retail solution providers, and being able to capitalize on the edge. To localize data in a very similar fashion, but yet be able to make those retail experiences, the personalized retail experiences, portable, there's a lot of possibilities, whether it's you, like what we were saying before, the on-prem stuff, which is what you see a lot of the large, like the Walmarts of the world doing and some of the more.
Public edge cloud type of possibilities, whether it's provided by a service provider that's offering these things in a SaaS type of model.
Matt Trifiro: Right. Yeah. And what's interesting about retail is, so there's two trends that are sort of fighting [00:33:00] against each other. One is, let's add more capabilities. So automated inventory, automated checkout, loss prevention, like yeah, personalization, all these things.
But the retail stores not a great place for a data center. It's not even a great place for an equipment closet, especially if it's like running data center, like stuff like, again, like a bunch of envi, envi GPUs or something. It's also. When you think about maintenance, like the truck roll has to go to every store cause you're not gonna have that expertise on site.
And when you think about capital expense, you've gotta invest in the same equipment in every store, even though you can throw a rock from one Starbucks and hit another Starbucks. Yeah. And the last thing is that if you have everything on the store property, you've got a single point of failure that maybe isn't your greatest disaster recovery scenario.
Absolutely right. And so how do we deal with those two? Like, ah, last thing I want is a data center, but now I need one to do all these capabilities. How does that play out?
Leonard Lee: Yeah, well, it's edge infrastructure, so
Matt Trifiro: like near premises as a service so that you can [00:34:00] Yeah, you buy a fractional piece of a Exactly.
Metal or so, or net or
Leonard Lee: something. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so coming full circle, it's those new possibilities across the edge infrastructures and, and so as you look at building your applications for retail, You can localize something, certain things, you can keep things on premise, but then you can keep certain things on device.
But then for certain workloads and certain data sets, you can have it deployed closer and closer to the cloud. It might, and some of it in the cloud. Right. And so I, I, I guess the, the easy way of looking at it is that there, there is this continuum and the, the, you have this whole. A whole buffet is stuff that you can consider when you look at how you want to architect your systems and applications and deploy 'em in a way that makes sense.
It's not a simple exercise. But I think that's really where a solution [00:35:00] architect or a systems architect and developers need to develop an awareness of what's available, what's possible, and then put together a system design as well as application architectures that can take advantage of what's available, but then also deliver on the system.
And the application at lower price point or with more performance than was possible before. Yeah. Let's talk
Matt Trifiro: a little bit about sort of observability, right? So one of the things that Edge computing is definitely driving, or maybe it's the other way around, one of things that's. Pulling edge computing is the emergence of low cost sensors, and a lot of times these sensors can produce a tremendous amount of data.
A 4K camera produces a tremendous amount of data. Sure. And we're getting this explosion of sensors that are producing data all the time. In the software world. We've started calling that observability the nuance between analytics and observability. It's one of these, like, what is edge computing? But one of the ones that I like, one of the distinctions I like is that observability.
Is a [00:36:00] characteristic of a system. It is observable as opposed to analytics, which is you gotta go figure out how to instrument it, do it. And so we're in this world where everything is observable, like everything that's important in our world is observable. There's so much data about, say, a factory floor, and I can consume all this data with all these cloud computers that are nearby and are operating at land speed.
And I can build. A model of my plant floor and all the things going through it, and then do AI inferencing against that to affect changes or predict downtime or that sort of thing. Yeah, sure. Tell me how you see the digital twin evolving and helping us. Whether it's like figuring out what to, where to put stuff in my store or how to prevent shutdowns at my
Leonard Lee: factory.
Yeah. Okay. So first off, with observability you could, but the big question and challenge is, can you. That's the tough part. We assume that everything can be instrumented, everything can become part of the view that we have of things, but that's a challenge in and of itself as far as a digital twin goes.
[00:37:00] What's clear to me through a lot of the research that I've done for quite some time on a topic as well as just recent debates that I've had, is that one of the things that it will do everyone a favor is understand that it's just a concept. It's not even a technology. It's a construct that you would use to inform how you can create a digital representation of something for whatever purpose.
So I think it takes all kinds of different shapes and form, depending on what you're trying to do. No reason to get religious about it. But one of the things that I tend to promote in my particular sect of digital twin thinking is that it is twining with a unique physical. Object. And for the purpose of synchronizing these two things for a certain purpose, oftentimes what is going to manifest itself in terms of application is some sort of observability or visibility application and or control.
Now, ultimately when we look at the realization [00:38:00] of a digital twin, you're gonna be looking at having this closed feedback loop of control happening with that. Thing. That's how we get to automation, right? Yeah. And eventually, if we throw a little bit of intelligence in the middle, it's going to have a bit of autonomy.
The digital twin stuff is interesting. It's a practice in a lot of ways. It's hard for me to get really excited about it and claimed that it can do something. It can take very simple form and deliver tremendous amount of value, right? It could just be like a couple of attributes that just happen to be important for whatever application you
Matt Trifiro: are.
Right? Is the building on fire or not?
Leonard Lee: Yeah, exactly. And but does that mean you have to have a 3D model of the thing, right. And then have a physics model underneath it with first principles and then a simulate. Do you need all of that stuff, or is it as simple as having a couple of little sensors on the thing that [00:39:00] determine temperature, humidity, pressure, and then having that stream to analyze and to provide you with the kind of insight?
That you're looking for. So you know what I'm saying? Okay. If you want to start to progress this thing to support more advanced applications like autonomous control, well okay. That's a different story. Yeah.
Matt Trifiro: So Leonard, when you look out to the future, when you look at, and I kind of want to ask you both sort of relatively near term, so let's say the next 18 to 24 months and then like the next decade, what's most interesting and exciting to you?
Leonard Lee: Oh, geez. That's a tough question. There's a lot of exciting stuff. What's happening in the semiconductor industry with heterogeneous computing and advanced packaging is really interesting. Combining that with what's happening on the compute end with more of this AI infused compute. I'm not talking about gen ai, but the way that we look at applications and how they're being built infuses both sort [00:40:00] of this.
AI and conventional software development and how these two worlds are coming together to enable the next generation of software applications. But then all that super interesting stuff that's happening under the hood, right, with the hardware and how it's promoting these and fostering these new device categories.
There's just so many exciting things. It, it, it is hard to say that one thing is more important than the other. It, it is just the confluence of all these different technologies and trends and advancements. They really contribute to some amazing things that we can expect in the future.
Matt Trifiro: Let me ask the question a little bit different way.
All right, so imagine you're a super being. You're looking out over the landscape of everything and you realize there are some things that are holding us back. Government regulation, I don't know, whatever it is. And if you could go and push a couple of those dominoes to make the advancement that you wanna [00:41:00] see happen faster, which dominoes would you push?
What are the things that you think we really need some help getting over, over the hump a little bit and would make a big
Leonard Lee: difference? The big thing nowadays is gonna be trust. That gets in the way of a lot of stuff. Trust in technologies, the applications trust in organizational intent. If
Matt Trifiro: I give you my data, will you keep it?
Yes.
Leonard Lee: Trust is gonna be the biggest thing. And it's funny because I wrote about that. It was part of our study that we did. It was a first, next curve study for Ofcom. One of the three pillar themes. One of them was
Matt Trifiro: trust and not just technical trust. Yep. You mean like. The humans that are part of that that can make Yeah, yeah.
Leonard Lee: Bad decisions. That, and then where is the root of trust going to be for our societies or, and everything, quite honestly. Yeah. Because a lot of it's becoming under quite question, right. And it, it's one of the challenges that the [00:42:00] democratization of technology. Is going to impose upon humanity. We can see that maybe some of us, it's not as visible to some folks, but we will eventually see that trust is going to be probably in short supply and probably one of the more precious things.
Matt Trifiro: Yeah, that's a really fascinating, that's a subject of a whole nother podcast maybe.
Leonard Lee: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And there's the edge and edge computing. All this stuff happening at Edge is gonna have a lot to do with Yeah. It's just
Matt Trifiro: gonna make it more complex. Totally get it. Totally get it. Hey Leonard, thanks so much for coming on.
If people wanna find you online, where should they look for you?
Leonard Lee: Oh man. Follow me on LinkedIn. Yeah, I have quite a following there. I call them friends. I don't like the term follower, but I have a lot of friends on LinkedIn. You can also follow my research@www.next curve.com. Also have a YouTube channel Next Curve, so you can check
Matt Trifiro: that out.
We'll put all those links in the show notes too. So, [00:43:00] And then I have a
Leonard Lee: newsletter that's doing pretty well and you can follow me on a monthly basis. I have some opining that I include in that, as well as links to all the research and media stuff that I do.
Matt Trifiro: And bam, with AI chatter on LinkedIn.
Leonard Lee: You know me
Matt Trifiro: too well.
I do, man. All right, Leonard, thanks so much for coming. It's been a great show. Appreciate you having on. Thanks for having me
Leonard Lee: on. I'm really glad I had a chance to jump on in. Have fun with you. That
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